Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Prozac Nation

Though the book is published in the Nirvana nineties, I can identify with Wurtzel’s thoughts polluted by depression, and I have only finished reading up to page 62. She grew up living a middle-class, generally comfortable life, minus an irresponsible father and her parents’ divorce (my parents are still married). She was enlisted in tennis lessons, went to summer camp where they held prayer by the flagpole every morning and was beautiful and healthy. But, gradually, around puberty, she just started feeling like a burden, like everything was pointless, that life was a painful facade. She also felt ugly and uncomfortable in her own casing: “I felt that I was wrong–my hair was wrong, my face was wrong…How could I walk around with such pasty white skin, such dark,doleful eyes, such straight, anemic hair, such round hips and such a small cinched waist?”. In middle school, I remember feeling big, hairy, pimply and gross, unlike all the skinny,tan girls around me with light blonde hair on their arms. Something was not graceful or beautiful about me, or so I thought. I dwelled on my imperfections, and therefore felt like a beast.

Unlike Elizabeth, I never overdosed on allergy medicine at summer camp, or cut my legs with a razor in the locker room during lunch. I had different ways of coping, some not very healthy and which I choose not to mention here. I am looking forward to reading the rest of this book, and will keep you updated on what I find moving and noteworthy about the book.

Ever read Prozac Nation? Thoughts?

The Case of the Grey Room

Rhubarb stood, alone. The room was grey, the colors, faded. They used to not be such, they used to shine a little bit brighter, the curtains hung a little bit tighter. She inhaled deeply, attempting to whiff any evidence of Sully’s wet fur, after a run outside in the cool, rainforest rain. He would run under the table, a rawhide in his jaw. The smell used to bother her, but now, she missed the sweet scent. All she could smell now was mildew, and the waxy smell she imagined that could either be from maggots or cockroaches.

Rhubarb closed her eyes, turning towards the open window to inhale the wind outside, but then snapping the shutters together.

“Rhu, we need to get you out of here.”

She opened her pale hazel eyes. Beatrice stood at the doorway. Rhubarb covered her eyes with her cracked hands, producing a small, whiny noise.

“Rhu, it’s not funny now.” Beatrice reached to grab her wrists.

“No! Why should I leave, Ma?” Another whiny spurt, this time, turning into a hiss.

A snake tongue slithered out of her mouth.

Beatrice jumped back, heart beating quickly. Deep breath, Bea. She thought, Keep some type of composure. Last time cannot happen again. 

HSSSSSSSS…….Rhubarb closed her mouth and then smiled. Her brows then furrowed, and she clutched her heart, which was beating as fast as a sparrow in flight. Sweat traveled down the forming caveanous  rivers in her skin.

“Why leave, Ma? Why? There is no need…besides the day is too hot…I’ll sweat an ocean.”

Beatrice wobbled one, shaky peg-leg foot towards  her daughter, the three-year old girl in the Mickey Mouse t-shirt she wanted to remember, the one she needed to resurrect and place in her twenty-something arms.

“Rhu, baby, you know you can’t be in here. Not another minute, okay? When winter comes, the pipes will freeze…there will be no water, nothing. You must not stay in here.”

Hssssss…

“I can stay how damn long I want,” Suddenly, there was a crashing of the table, tears trickling down her porous skin.

“Rhu…”

“I cannot leave. Scully will come back here any moment, begging for a treat,” she kicked the cotton scented candle over, the carpet besides her bursting into flames.

Beatrice stared at her daughter, her skin turning crispier.

She threw her body into the fire, the burn stinging like a million needles, crackling echoed in the empty room…

 

Can Maggie Call?

The rain bust down, pounding the shingles. Maggie planked in bed, gazing up at the ceiling, watching the lights dance from cars brushing by the apartment. She heard tires screech through the loud riff of the precipitation and Dr. Pennington yelling obsentities. He was probably biking through the weather. “Hard condidtions keep  you on your feet, you know that, Maggie?”

She pulled the covers off her heated body, her long legs perspiring, delicate  trickling down to her feet.

She tip-toed over the the refrigerator, opening it and feeling the sudden coolness kiss her skin, the air wrapping around her whole body.

Maggie poured a glass of water, guzzling the content entirely, like an alcoholic drinking a pint of whiskey for the very first time in five years.

Ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss…….

SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS…..

The python moved across the top of the refrigerator, sliding down, wrapping around her feet. Maggie held her breath, breathed out, heavily.

The python continued to wrap around her legs,

her hips,

chest,

neck,

a slight squeeze.

She closed her eyes, remembering the time when she was running around the pre-school playground, trying to catch up with her friends, all who ran away from her. After all, she was dubbed the Ninja Turtles Villian.

She felt a needle pierce through her temple. A rusty needle, entering a little deeper each time.

Six years old, the freckled girl who pushed her face near hers on the blacktop, “I’m playing with Danielle”

Those demons in Catholic school skirts, acting out a skit about her love for the eraser-eater of the class. Laughter.

Those long, rolled up shorts in gym class, Ryan making a snide comment. She was never the petite cheerleader Jessica was.

Sitting at home, surrounded by Cheerios, an ocean of whole grains, waiting for someone, anyone, to call.

College, one of the many times in the bathroom, stomach aching, poptart and oatmeal packets scatter the floor like little islands on her carpet.

Withdrawing from the magazine class.

The needle hit the middle of her head, and scrapped her insides.

She tried to scream.

And, she did.

Waiting, just waiting for someone to call.

Can Maggie call?

The sun came up the next morning. Maggie was sprawled out in bed.

The sun always comes up in the morning.

My Name Isn’t Jane, But I Can Relate

I’m a sucker for Ben Folds Five music. My emotional cords get tugged by a lot of his songs, probably because they are so down-to-earth and truthful. Right now, I can really relate to the band’s song, “Jane” which is off their album, The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner. I started listening to this album during college, at a time where I was feeling really confused about who I was going to be,. I was hoping be associated as Ms. Hot, Popular Party Girl (instead I turned out to be Ms. Sloppy). In high school, I was a shy theater geek, so I wanted to make a big change so I would never be lonely.

I still find it hard to express my dissenting opinions. In fact, I have focused so hard on pleasing others that there is a lot of things I do not have an opinion about because I have worked so hard to put on so many different images in the past few years that it can be hard for me to really be, well, me.

“Jane” gives me hope. Especially this one line:

It’s your life, you can decorate it as you like

Rain, Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

Since there were no pictures of this painting that I could copy and paste in this post, I have put the link to a high resolution image here:

Rain,  Vincent Van Gogh, 1889  

Rain beats swiftly on the Ghost Town patio

The clowns and jesters have gone

Home to beer and pickles

She tastes sweet cotton candy in sleet and rain

Perhaps hardened jawbreakers will hit her bare skin

Her naked left foot grazes the floor

A splinter pierces her rough padded heel

She winces

Wondering if she will always be in the rain

A princess trapped on a patio

Screwdrivers pounding her head, swelling her stomach for vomit

The mountains so far away from Cotton Candy Rain

As they have always been

She’s frightened to run to their hard, padded feet

Instead, she will eat the rain

Plump like a turkey, she thinks

The forest by the mountain haunts her

There might be pleasant, crisp steams of water, chilling and sensual

But she is so afraid the leaves on the trees

Will cover Cotton Candy Rain